Yesterday, we had all-staff meetings to explain what the status is of the proposal from management for re-location. Even though "only" around 230 roles are supposedly moving, over 600 people came to the two sessions. After a short presentation, we opened the floor for questions during which I passed the microphone around. The Q&A made me realise very clearly one of the impacts of the possible change for me personally. I am going to lose easy contact with a lot of people.Around 20 people asked questions. I realised that over the years, I have had some kind of contact with almost all of those people. And as I looked around the conference centre, it hit me that I had met so many good people at my company - so many of the audience were close friends, good colleagues, people I have managed, or worked with on a project, or had a training course with, or run the Dam to Dam together with, or been in a Dragon Boat with, or just got talking to at the coffee machine.
Our office is a great place to build a life in a foreign country. There are around 50 nationalities in the building, and that means there are so many people with one common bond - they are all sharing the experience of taking a big step, moving to and living in a different country. As a result, friendships with work colleagues seem more possible than in other situations. I was never so close with colleagues in the UK.
My greatest luck and joy has been the people I worked with over the last 16 years. My two closest friends, Morten and Sonny, joined the same year as me (Sonny on the same day!) and other friendships with great people like Helena, Rogier, Bruce, Chantal, Hendrik, Evelyn & Andrea came from working together. These friendships of many years are the strongest legacy I will go away with if the move goes ahead. And I will miss the chance to make more such friendships - there will be other companies, but never a time or place or people like this.
I was especially lucky in the last 9 months. It was one of the hardest periods of my working life, but it was made so much better by working with Morten and Andrea - two of the best people I know, professionally and personally. Their character - positive, motivated, intelligent, funny, creative - has made working together feel like working with friends. Real social work.
